Arduino

[Max]

Hi,
Has anyone had any expiriance using Arduino? Can anyone recomend a good starter kit for a complete beginner?
Thanks

[shakesc]

Re: Arduino

Their forum seems active
http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php?action=forum

I believe Maddox has used them

[typhoon_driver]

Re: Arduino

I've had a play. Couldn't tell you what parts I was playing with as they are back at my parents place but they have many potential uses.

[Eventorizon]

Re: Arduino

What exactly are you wanting to do with it? There are several different starter kits but they all vary slightly. If you want to do motor then I can pretty much guarantee you will need to get some extra transistors or whole ESC's.

Arduino is like the go-to prototyping tool for basic electronic systems for a huge range of applications. Providing you only need one thread or instructions, where everything follows on sequentially, you can probably do it with an Arduino. Quote from my tutor when starting our project.

When I started I found that it has been used my so many people and because its all open source that you can find the code for 90% of what you want to do online.

I did Ardino in my second year and after 20 minutes had found the code to do my entire project. I modified it a bit to fit with the LEDs I was using but all I had to do really was set up all the in's and out's

[Max]

Re: Arduino

I don't have anything in particular I want to do- I just want to learn/have a go at this kind of thing. Ive found the arduino starter kit on RS components and that looks fairly good as it covers wide range of basic projects.

[Ellis]

Re: Arduino

Well I have heard this might be the answer (or at least partial-answer) to us wanting Tormenta 2's weapon to be controlled like a servo, in that it defaults to ground-scraping as the joystick is sprung back to centre.

If anyone can help us achieve this, it'll be greatly appreciated. I admit I haven't looked into it yet, though. I'll try and catch you on FB sometime, Alex.

[Marien]

Re: Arduino

I have used an Arduino Uno to guide my autonomous racecar. To start I bought the Uno and the book Getting started with Arduino by Massimo Banzi. With the wire, LED's and servo's that I have lying around and my basic knowledge of programming plus info from arduino.cc it was a fairly easy start.
There are starter kits with breadboard and/or wires that may help with experimenting, but some old electronic devices (toys and keyboards, to take apart), wire and tape will get you there too.

Tip: start simple and make sketches of the wiring before assembing the hardware.
Nice projects can be found on makezine.com and youtube.

[PJ-27]

Re: Arduino

I've had great fun with my Arduino, but mostly making musical interfaces.

@Ellis using an Arduino to control your lifter should be pretty straight forward. Just effectively remake a servo, only with your motor and ESC and an external VR.

[craig_anto]

Re: Arduino

if your just looking to make it like a servo might I suggest you try this

http://www.lynxmotion.com/images/html/ht01.htm we did something like this for the Scorpion

[maddox10]

Re: Arduino

I believe Maddox has used them

Me, electronics??? Woha.

Unfortunatly, I have troubles connecting 2 wires...

[shakesc]

Re: Arduino

Sorry, had it in my head for some reason. Blame the Christmas eggnog

On the flip side there is a wealth of information around on Arduino.
It really comes down to what the requirements are.
A learning exercise is one thing. If thats the case then a raspberry pi is also a good platform though not so strong in the robot control area yet

I've spent alot of time reading the posts on the Arduino forum (blame the Christmas telly)

I do recommend http://rcarduino.blogspot.co.uk/

There are also tutorials on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCxzA9_kg6s

The platform has limitations. There are typically only a couple of hardware interrupt pins and the code examples I've seen are single threaded. Some interesting posts

http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,105573.0.html

http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,50539.0.html

http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,60508.0.html


Most of the fighting robot applications I have thought of are achievable with some simple analogue electronics and at worst a PIC. Horses for course really. If someone is beating your bot or trying to catapult it through the air keeping it simple is important

[shakesc]

Re: Arduino

thanks to the Antweight guys also found this link
http://www.robowars.org/wikka/PololuB328

[john_frizell]

Re: Arduino

Or you could try Picaxe. http://www.picaxe.com/
They supply lots of kits [go to the right top of the page and click shop] and a free programming editor. They run BASIC [which is quite powerful these days] and their bottom end chip supports 4 outputs and 2 inputs, takes about 400 lines of code and costs £1.80. I have several autonomous robots which use their stuff.

[shakesc]

Re: Arduino

Picaxe was used on this

http://robowars.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=494